How we learned PR

Learning by doing: a story from a subject

Most recently, the subject classEvent organizationOurs ended with real events that we organized ourselves. An open topic for all imagination and creativity to be fully developed.Organize an event that truly serves a need.” was proposed by teacher, Master Trinh Le Anh – a famous MC of VTV. Everyone was excited, formed groups, came up with ideas and quickly implemented them.

Each group has its own style with very different topics. From music entertainment programs to academic dialogue programs. The groups have gone through all the stages of organizing events such as: coming up with ideas, making plans, assigning tasks and then implementing. Each stage has its share of funny and sad stories.

It can be said that the idea generation stage was the most chaotic. There was only one group leader but there were 29 group members with dozens of ideas coming in, it was really difficult to unify them. We voted for the ideas like a beauty pageant. After each round of filtering, things started to get brighter when we reached the top 3 and finally there was a “crowned idea” with both talent (message) and beauty (concept).

After the “beauty queen” was crowned, the organizers began specific activities for her. First, they had to choose a performance location. Some groups had a hard time surveying the location. A large place had poor sound, a small place had good sound, a place that was both large and had good sound demanded a high price. Finally, the beauty queen was introduced in a suitable place, with acceptable sound and lighting in a cozy space that could accommodate a certain number of guests.

Next, the story of the preparation and negotiation logistics is very interesting. Speakers are very busy people, so the contact and negotiation are not always smooth sailing. Some speakers just returned from abroad on the day of the event, others had to undergo surgery 3 days before the event, or speakers did not accept the ticket price of the program. No matter how much effort was put into convincing them, in the end they accepted and showed up exactly on time as we had promised.

Other preparations also kept our Facebook, Gmail, and phones busy. “Hey, where can I print this cheaply and beautifully?”, “How are the tickets distributed?”, “What time is it and why haven’t you posted anything yet?” “Summarize the number of customers for me right now”… these kinds of sentences ran on the computer and phone screens, creating an urgent atmosphere, a spirit of non-stop work that made us very excited. In addition, this time, you guys also got to show off your writing skills. The event promotion articles were very well-invested. After a while of reasoning about music, telling the story of “How I came to Guitar”, or “The path to the event career”, at the end, people realized “Oh, these guys are selling”. The articles won the sympathy of readers so that after a like, a ticket was sold.

After all the hard work of preparing, the day of the event finally arrived. Chaos was inevitable. Any group event with children, the children ran around everywhere, curious and inquisitive, making the organizers dizzy trying to arrange. And what’s more, lack of water, lack of chairs, rain, dead microphones, overloaded wifi, running out of time were common, and a million other things that happened that we didn’t expect.

And finally, through this event, we have fully utilized the power of relationships in asking for sponsorship. Sponsors bring scholarships worth millions, then provide cash as well as professional sponsorship or help us have beautiful photos, have a decorated location.

This was a truly valuable experience. We learned many lessons. Skills in organizing and managing work, planning, team management, writing, negotiating and persuading were all more or less honed. This exercise became even more meaningful because every mistake was recorded as a lesson and every loss (if any) would not have to be compensated. Teachers will guide you to improve, so that mistakes become lessons, which is hard to find outside. A valuable lesson that an outside course may not bring such results.

Experience to be professional from the classroom

That is how we have been learning in the past time, learning while doing, learning from the classroom to reality. Not only event organization but also other subjects. The exercises are days of traveling together on all roads with cameras in hand, meeting and interviewing sometimes a great person like the general secretary of the newspaper, sometimes just a miserable life at the foot of the bridge to create an emotional report. With a system of modern equipment, the school's studio is a favorite place of many students. There, new ideas are born. It is a laboratory for media products.

During those days of study, teachers were always by our side. In addition to imparting professional knowledge and suggesting new knowledge, teachers always tried to connect with external partners to support us on our journeys. Visits to the editorial office, collecting real-life documents, running communication campaigns, participating in supporting events, attending seminars all brought valuable experiences and knowledge. It turned those dry theories into something easier to "digest" and fresher. The exercises we were doing, although simple, were really useful, they were concrete examples of the theories we learned.

Surely basic knowledge - hands-on experience is what teachers always try to do, sometimes adding this, now editing that, the purpose is for us to update faster with new trends, closer to reality. Teaching knowledge, doing practice exercises regularly, going out to learn together are what teachers and students always try to do every day. Teachers have a simple wish, that students after graduation can do and live with the job they love.

In addition to such classes, we also have many other extracurricular activities. The major activities include Singing Newspaper, Tu Hung Cup football tournament, Lien Chuong “playful” festival and many other side activities.

Initial results

Studying in a dynamic environment where we can both study and work, along with many cultural, sports and artistic activities, we have initially achieved our own small successes. We feel confident when introducing ourselves to everyone, especially to employers. Among us, many of you have been interning in dream places such as Star Galaxy - co-organizer of Ionah Show, CEO Academy, World Vision Company, Vietpictures, Thanhs Brand, Sunshine Holding, Hoa Hoc Tro, etc. In those places, we are trusted and assigned relatively important tasks such as writing TV scripts, participating in coming up with ideas for new programs, writing and posting news articles, etc. The feeling between studying and doing an internship is also full of surprises, strangeness, and a little fear, but with the passion, knowledge and experience that teachers impart, we are always ready for new races with more challenges and finally "Welcome to our home".